What Is Akismet And Guide To Setup Akismet WordPress Plugin

Set up Akismet With Free Akismet API Key: One of the two pre-installed plugins that come with new WordPress installation is Akismet. Akismet is a very popular plugin and also highly recommended WordPress plugin. Even though it is pre-installed, but you need to configure it.

In this guide, I will explain what is Akismet and why is it highly recommended WordPress plugin and also how to configure Akismet on your WordPress blog/site.

What Is Akismet ?

Akismet is an anti-spam WordPress plugin. It is a free plugin by Automattic. Its name comes from Automattic and kismet. Akismet automatically detects blog comment spam and pingback spam using algorithms. It’s a free solution to stop WordPress spam. Till now Akismet caught over 120 billion spam comments. That’s Incredible!!!!!!!!!!

Why Should You Use Akismet WordPress Plugin ?

When a new WordPress blog/site goes live, you will see lots of spam comments that may look genuine to you and it is quite difficult for you to check which comments is genuine and which is not. It is difficult for you to mark these comments as spam one by one, doing this you will waste your lot and lots of your precious time.

And in this situation, Akismet comes to the rescue by doing comment moderation for you. This will allow you to focus on moderating genuine comments.

How To Setup Akismet In WordPress

Assuming you have Akismet installed on your WordPress blog, if not please first install Akismet. And once you are done we shall proceed with Akismet Setup.

First of all, we need to activate Akismet, Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and activate Akismet.

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Upon activation, Go to Settings > Akismet and if you have Jetpack plugin installed you will find Akismet under Jetpack in the left pane of your WordPress dashboard. Now you will be asked to enter Akismet API key. Now open a new browser window, we will get back to this page after creating an Akismet API key.

How To Get Free Akismet API key

Follow these steps to get free Akismet API key for your WordPress blog.

Go to Akismet plans and pricing page, here you will see different plans available. But Akismet is free for non-business and personal websites/blogs. Choose “Personal plan” and click on sign up button to proceed.

Now sign up for Akismet using WordPress.com. Enter required details and click on sign up button. But in case you already have a WordPress.com account, then click on I already have a WordPress.com account and enter your login details. Please note WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two different hosting platforms, for more information check out WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org, Which is Better?

Once you are finished with authenticating your WordPress account, you are now asked to provide your contact details with payment information. If you want a free plan then simply drag the price amount to $0 and click continue.

Now a pop-up window will open displaying your Free Akismet API key as in the screenshot. You will also receive your Akismet API key in your Email inbox. Copy your API key.

Now the next step after creating Akismet key is using it in WordPress. Now lets us move on to our last few steps.

Using Akismet API Key In WordPress

Copy your free Akismet API key

Go back to your WordPress Dashboard. Now go to Settings > Akismet or Jetpack > Akismet and paste your API key there and click on Use this key. Now a success message will appear.

Criticism By Akismet Users

Akismet is the best Anti-spam plugin but it is not perfect. Users criticize Akismet for giving false positives. When a genuine comment is incorrectly marked as spam by Akismet it is called a false positive.

This happens when a comment by a user is marked as spam by no. of blogs, then Akismet would learn to mark all comments from that user as spam but Akismet learns from its mistakes and you can easily unspam genuine comment.

I hope this guide will help newbie bloggers to quickly setup Akismet and also how to get free Akismet API key. Please Share It On Facebook and Google Plus and do Subscribe For Updates. If you have any query, please leave a comment.

Prince Sumberia

Hey Incredibles, Welcome to BroughtMeUp. I'm Prince Sumberia, an incredibly passionate blogger from India and. Here at BroughtMeUp I write about Starting & managing a blog, WordPress, SEO, Social media, and Making Money online.
You can read more about me at About Me Page.

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